In view of current commercial requirements or conditions, as well as competitive business pressures, automated mail processing scanning or reading, sorting, handling, and distributing systems are required to accommodate and process an ever-increasing range of individually diverse mail products, pieces, articles, or units. In accordance with an initial processing step or stage of the aforenoted overall automated mail processing system, the system must physically transport and present the various articles, pieces, or units of mail to an optical character recognition (OCR), a bar code reader (BCR), or an equivalent image capture, camera sub-system such that address recognition can be quickly and accurately achieved or accomplished. Conventional mail piece or article transportation or conveyance systems, however, have exhibited or experienced several operational problems which effectively prohibit or militate against the successful achievement or accomplishment of the necessary address recognition processing operation.
More particularly, in accordance with such conventional mail piece or article transportation or conveyance systems, mail pieces or articles are conveyed through the camera sub-system and across the slotted reader platen as a result of being tightly pressed or sandwiched between a roller-backed and conveyed transport or conveyor belt and a stainless steel reader platen. A critical consideration in connection with the quick and accurate achievement or accomplishment of the address recognition processing of the mail pieces or articles comprises the conveyance or transportation of the mail pieces or articles in a vibration-free or jitter-free operational mode because if the mail pieces or articles are in fact subjected to vibrations, jitter, extraneous shock forces, or the like, the images of such mail pieces or articles, as captured by means of the camera sub-system, will not be clear, focused, complete, or accurate. Unfortunately, however, the aforenoted type of conventional conveyor or transport system is incapable of transporting or conveying the mail pieces or articles in such a desirable jitter-free or vibration-free operational mode. The reasons for these results reside in, or derive from, basic structural characteristics of the transportation or conveyor system.
More specifically, the presence or disposition of the roller mechanisms along the actual transport or conveyor belt flow path, and at positions opposite, or within the immediate vicinity of, the slotted reader platen comprising the camera view-port, causes the mail pieces or articles to sometimes be conveyed or transported in a substantially or somewhat undulated manner. This is partly due to the fact that during cyclical conveyor belt transportation or conveyance by means of the conveyor rollers, the latter undergo compression and decompression movements with respect to the stainless steel platen which effectively provides or exhibits a predetermined amount of resistance to the movements of the roller mechanisms. However, within the immediate area or vicinity of the slotted camera view-port, the view-port does not provide the same level of predetermined resistance to the movements of the roller mechanisms as does the stainless steel platen. Accordingly, the conveyor roller mechanisms, acting through means of the conveyor belt, can cause the mail pieces or articles to be forced or depressed into the view-port region of the platen assembly. In turn, such physical depression of the mail pieces or articles causes the lineal surface dimensions of the mail pieces or articles to be increased thereby resulting in skewed imagery and imaging results. Still yet further, the decompression and compression of the backup roller mechanisms cause lineal portions of the conveyor belt to be stretched or relaxed which effectively causes images to be stretched or compressed, or even missed, as the mail articles or pieces move beyond the camera scan line. In addition, the disposition of a lineal conveyor belt over a planar platen results in the generation of considerable drag forces to be impressed upon the mail pieces, articles, or products. In view of all of the foregoing operational characteristics or factors, the camera receives skewed, smeared or incomplete images which of course, in turn, lead to reader system failures.
A need therefore exists in the art for a new and improved product adaptive, control and stabilization article conveyor or transport sub-system for use in connection with a camera-based optical character recognition (OCR), bar code reader (BCR), or similar image capture system wherein the components of the system do not exhibit or generate the aforenoted pressure and drag-induced destabilizing forces characteristic of conventional or PRIOR ART mail piece or article camera imaging systems such that the resulting imagery is not skewed, smeared, compressed, or incomplete, and is therefore, in turn, clear, accurate, and complete so as not to result in reader system failures.